David Ottewell has an interesting post on today’s rail announcements. Leaving aside the electoral implications (if that is possible in the current political climate!), he gets it spot on.
The Government has now committed to providing £5.3billion towards to cost of Crossrail in London - that’s not the Government support for transport in London but for one project, albeit a significant one.
Meanwhile here in Greater Manchester - and please take note of my emphasis here - we have had to bid for a share of a £3billion loan to cover almost all future public transport investment. Of course, even then the loan comes with more strings than a feature-length episode of Thunderbirds. As a sweetener we’ve now also got a Piccadilly feasibility study, but of course a feasibility study comes with no further commitments, and a lengthy report doesn’t take anyone into work in the city!
I am not for one minute arguing against Crossrail, which is a much needed scheme, nor do I expect that Manchester should receive the same size slice of the cake as London does, but I do expect a level playing field and an element of proportion to Government funding. At the moment, this does not seem to be the case.
Not to worry Iain - there’s a good chance the Crossrail announcement is bogus anyway. The Government announced that Crossrail had the go-head just before the last General Election. In fact they announced it in 2003, 2004, and 2006 too. This time last year the announcement was that work on Crossrail would begin in 2009: this year’s announcement puts that start at 2010. Crossrail has been repeatedly announced since 1989. I guess that the Government’s promises to Londoners are often as empty as they are to those of us in Greater Manchester.
2007 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7029201.stm
2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6191116.stm
2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4698091.stm
2004 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3910091.stm
2003 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3064145.stm